At this party, no one had to struggle to remember the names of all the guests: 178 people gathered in Tokyo on Saturday – and they were all called Hirokazu Tanaka. Organized by a 53-year-old namesake, they achieved their goal on the third attempt, an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. All participants, aged three to 80, wore red T-shirts with their names on them.
All Hirokazu Tanakas had to sit still for five minutes in a theater in the Japanese capital, then the previous record was broken, a representative of the Guinness Book confirmed. In 2005, 164 people named Martha Stewart got together on a TV show in New York.
‘Never expected such a ridiculous record’
“I never expected that we would set such a ridiculous record,” said the organizer in Tokyo with a laugh. The Tanakas set “an example of folly.” He himself had started looking for other namesakes in 1994 after he came across a baseball star of the same name.
The 53-year-old had already tried to break the Martha Stewarts record twice – most recently in 2017, when just 87 Hirokazu Tanakas appeared.
What would be the most recordable name in Switzerland to gather as many people as possible with the same name? (kes/AFP)